When democracy reaches the workplace

Environmental degradation, poverty, exhausted employees. These are problems that could be solved by the market. Provided that there is economic democracy.

In Sweden we take political democracy for granted. We think democracy is so valuable that we try to export it to countries with other kinds of governance. But if democracy is so important to us, why is it then that most of us agree, that for a large part of our lives, find ourselves in dictatorial systems - our workplaces?

In the movie "Kan vi göra det själva?" [Can we do it ourselves?], researchers, representatives for employers and workers, and  editors give their thoughts on economic democracy - the idea that participants in economic institutions would participate in the deciding the policy of the institution. Why has this idea not had a greater impact, not even in Sweden where people tend to put high value into freedom, as shown in the World Values ​​Survey's cultural map?

- Working life is such an incredibly big part of our lives - during a large part of our life. And it is completely absurd that we should accept the authoritarian conditions there. With a few people governing and the rest being governed. It is totally against any person who has an ounce of liberal thinking, who enjoys freedom, says Gustaf Arrhenius in the film.

The film is in Swedish but contains some interviews in English, with Noam Chomsky among others.